Star Citizen Introducing a $48,000 Ship Bundle, but Only for Players Who Have Already Spent $10,000::Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games is releasing a ship bundle for its controversial space simulator that costs an eye-watering $48,000.

  • Xavier@lemmy.ca
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    8 months ago

    I wonder if games that require such farfetched amounts of money should be included in the Luxury tax?

    A lot of those “whales” have cognitive difficulties and/or gambling addictions issues. Since many if these game developers/publishers have no qualm blindly milking and profiteering. It should be no surprise if some sort of tax is levied to help societies (à-la-tobacco or sugar tax) attenuate the ravages of gambling addictions.

    Moreover, Star Citizen has been released over 10 years ago while been continually updated.

    At what point is it just senseless greed that has taken over the game?

    • Heavybell@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      That level of buy-in is not required. You can get a game package with a single starter pack for US$40. The one in the article includes every variant of every vehicle currently in the game or in development or announced as planned. IMO it’s for people who just want to support development because it literally removes a bunch of reasons to even play.

      It’s hard to definitively say if greed has taken over or if they’re just trying to fund development as legitimately as possible without a publisher. They have done some groundbreaking things (64 bit coordinate system, object container streaming, etc) and are working in more (replication layer, server meshing, etc). That is why it has been so long and expensive, why the game is still alpha.

    • n3m37h@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      8 months ago

      It’s been a demo for over 10 years, not a game.

      Games have story, star citizen is a glorified tech demo as far as I am concerned.